Read Lizzy Gardner #2_Dead Weight for Free Online

just happened to be the irst one on her list: Peter, Randy, and Brian. After those three were taken care of, maybe she could breathe easier and sleep through the night again. Maybe her mom could get her life back in order.
    The irst apartment on the ground loor had curtains that had been pushed open. Inside, an old lady sat in her big cushiony chair and watched television, her face inches from the screen.
    “Hey baby,” came a voice from the shadowy depths of a tall hedge of poisonous oleander.
    She ignored the voice and kept on walking. The apartment she was looking for was at the far end of the complex. Although Lizzy’s sister had been nice enough to buy her a new pair of jeans and a few shirts, Hayley had opted to wear the out it her mother had given her a few years ago, back when Mom had been trying so hard to get sober. Her mom had been drug free for a few months and during that time they had gone shopping.
    Best day of Hayley’s life. Not because her mom bought her an out it, but because they had never done anything like that before. The two of them spent the entire day window shopping and then they ate Chinese food at the food court. Mother and daughter—just out shopping for the day—an honest to goodness fairy tale come true.
    Neither of them particularly loved sweets, but they stopped at the candy store that day too. Twenty minutes later they exited the sweet shop with a bag of sour gummy worms and black licorice shaped like tarantulas. They had laughed about that for days.
    Hayley didn’t want to hurt anyone, she thought as she continued on beneath the moon-lit night. Causing people pain wasn’t her thing.
    The therapist lady she’d been talking to up until a few weeks ago was nice and patient and she kept telling Hayley that the hatred she felt for most of mankind would subside over time. If that ever happened, that would be great. But for now, Hayley decided to take matters into her own hands. Contrary to popular belief, she didn’t hate everyone —just a few disgusting, narcissistic souls.
    Hayley knew she could go out every night for the rest of her life and she wouldn’t be able to make a dent in the drug-dealing population.
    She was smart enough to know that there might even be a few misguided drug dealers out there who really wanted to turn their lives around, and that was all wonderfully great. All those people were safe tonight, at least from her.
    But not Peter.
    Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater needed to pay for what he’d done.
    “Honey sweets. You can’t just walk by me without saying hello.”
    The guy had come out from the shadows and he was on her heels.
    She could practically feel his breath on the back of her neck.
    Reaching into her hip pocket, she whipped around fast. She was wearing a wig and the ends of her long red hair hit her chin. The blade of her knife gleamed in the moonlight as she held the sharp tip to his face.
    He took a few steps back and nearly tripped on his own feet.
    “Come on back here, baby,” she said. “I think we should talk about this.”
    When he realized she wasn’t going to lunge at him with her knife, he straightened the collar of his jacket, and then turned and walked off with a big man strut in his step. “Don’t be sticking no knife in my face, bitch,” he said as he walked off.
    She continued on her way, shadow man forgotten.
    The moon was bright. It wouldn’t surprise her to hear the howl of a wolf. Instead she heard a door slam shut. There were a lot of angry people living in this shithole.
    Her shoes, an old pair of Converses, hardly made any noise against the cement walkway as she moved along. She’d found the shoes at Goodwill for seventy-ive cents. They would have cost a lot more if the right shoe didn’t have a big-ass hole in it.
    There it was. .apartment 103B.
    Half hidden behind a planter filled with dried dead weeds, she took off her sneaks and her pants. If shadow man was watching, she didn’t care. She removed the pills from the